Reviews of Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America)

Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America) Level 1-5 Set

by Rosetta Stone
Platform: Windows Vista / 7 / XP, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

Our Method - Recreate the natural way you learned your first language and reveal skills that you already have using Dynamic Immersion. This award-winning method has been adopted by countless organizations, schools and millions of users around the world.

Learn Naturally: Discover how to speak, read, write, and understand--all without translating or memorizing. Our award-winning solution recreates how you learned your first language, unlocking your natural abilities.

Speak Confidently: Perfect your pronunciation with speech-recognition technology. Gain the confidence in your new voice as you practice with other learners in our exclusive online community and participate in online sessions coached by native tutors.

Immerse Yourself: Be surrounded by your new language. From core lessons to online sessions, Rosetta Stone gets you engaged and interacting with others.

Stay Motivated: Experience accomplishment with each moment of achievement; with dedicated success agents you will never lose sight of your language-learning goals.

Your Natural Ability. Awakened. Natural Discovery - Learning your first language is as natural as smiling. Effortless. Rewarding. Every step in Rosetta Stone feels like that. Clear, compelling images appear precisely, in juxtaposition, conveying meaning. Intuitively, you just know what it means...Buy Now!, Save $270 (36%) down from $479 with free shipping from $749!


Learn to speak Spanish, not translate, September 7, 2010

By Ivy Reisner (Brooklyn, NY USA)
This review is from: Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America) Level 1-5 Set (CD-ROM)

One of the hardest things to overcome in language learning is the desire to translate. If someone says "la mujer bebe leche" you don't want to think "the woman drinks milk" you want to derive the meaning right from the Spanish, and to go from intended message to Spanish when you speak. Translating will throw off your speed and can mess up your grammar, if the grammar of your native tongue is different from that of the language being studied.

There is almost no English in this. Instructions, where needed, are in English, and the rest is in Spanish. You learn the word for "woman" and the word for "man", then you get a picture of a woman drinking and the program says "la mujer bebe" (the woman drinks) and you click on the woman drinking. It never explicitly teaches the word for "to drink", you just figure it out from context. The upside--you stay in Spanish while learning Spanish. The downside--the brain cheats, so you only need to understand part of the sentence to get the right answer. The program exposes the learner to the same word in a variety of ways to help instill it.

The program is engaging, entertaining, and effective. It's the next best thing to taking a Spanish class.


A great program for enhancing Spanish fluency. But it still helps to crack a book, conjugate a few verbs, and study..., August 23, 2010

By APC Reviews "APC Reviews" (USA)
This review is from: Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America) Level 1-5 Set (CD-ROM)

Will using Rosetta Stone Spanish allow you to say: "Me sorprende que soy capaz de hablar un español fluido después de usar este programa sólo por un par de semanas!" ('I am amazed that I am able to speak fluent Spanish after using this program for only a few weeks')?

Probably not. It is, however, a very useful and well thought out program.

The Rosetta Stone line of language products all share the same basic design and interface. The key to the Rosetta Stone system is the presentation of word and action associations, influenced by context. This simulates the sort of cues that one would parse and process in speaking any language, even your own native language. Normally, you don't think about this as you speak your own language. But it's one of the hardest things to simulate outside of dealing with a second language in its own country and having the chance to deal with real life situations involving speakers of the second language.

Each screen is accompanied by a phrase, spoken out loud by a native speaker in the program, and four slightly different picture scenes that require you to pick the one that the sentence is referring to. Beginning at a very basic level -- such as "the boy is under the tree" (in whatever language) with four pictures of a boy next to, under, in the limbs of and cutting down the tree -- your proficiency improves as you move through these basic cues to more advanced and complex speaking and contexts. By the end of the program you are dealing with fairly complex situations, sentences and associations.

The program also allows you to repeat the phrase and, using the supplied microphone, match and score your own pronunciation against the supplied sample. You can also test your ability to properly write out a second language by spelling out and typing the phrase, although the work arounds for using a US English QWERTY keyboard with the special characters and distinct keyboard layouts used by different languages can be awkward. There are several variations on all the visual, verbal and textual tests.

The most important question one must answer when considering this product is: will it, as the advertising suggests, be a magic gateway to language learning that is all you need? The answers is: sort of.

First, this is an expensive product. Make no mistake, when you pay for a heavily advertised product like this that you are, in part, paying the cost of the extensive advertising that brought it to your attention and put you in a mind to buy it.

Second, although Rosetta Stone is an extremely well thought out and useful system for review, practice, improving reaction times to prompts in other languages, and gaining fluency through exposure to variable contexts, it is not a complete language course.

I have purchased a load of different language courses for languages that I have wanted to study on my own, and I can say, at least for me, that using at least two or more different packages that compliment, reinforce and overlap with each other is always better than trying to learn everything with only the logic and pattern of one single course. Besides, you really do need to learn grammar and other parts of the subject that cannot really be covered by, or communicated well by, a single program, even one as well thought out as Rosetta Stone.

At some point you really do have to crack a book and do some regular studying and learning, even though Rosetta Stone strongly implies that you can be speaking away in a second language with nothing more than some time in front of your laptop.

Conclusion: whatever language you are wanting to study, seriously consider Rosetta Stone. But also seriously consider buying a Pimsleur and a Living Language course to go along with it, and seriously contemplate the very un-Rosetta Stone-ish subject of studying verb conjugation rules, grammar, usage and verb tables.

All together you will stand a much better chance of gaining real fluency, and not just the ability to distinguish if the boy is in, under or besides he tree, or if all of the people, two of the people, the two men or the three women in the picture are eating steak or drinking wine. It's all good, but no one product or course can do it all.


I Am finally Learning Spanish~Easy and Fun~A progressive review., October 7, 2010

By kindred spirit (God's Country)
This review is from: Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America) Level 1-5 Set (CD-ROM)

I have never learned another language and at 54yrs old I want to keep my mind as sharp as possible. My review will be a progressive one as I go through each level. I had some computer issues so I got a later start but let me tell you Rosetta Stone tech support is FANTASTIC. If you are planing to use this on a computer than is running Windows XP make sure you have service pack 3 and 1GB of RAM for it to run correctly. All that being said here is what I already know.

I am just finishing level one and I am scoring 97% to 100% on all of my sessions! It is so much fun and you can have the words or phrases repeated as many times as you want. It will not let you continue until you say it to a satisfactory level. How does it know this? Well it comes with a very high quality UBS headset with microphone, that is comfortable to wear and works perfect. In between lessons there are CD's you can play and hear and repeat all the words you have learned on the computer. I keep these in the car. I find myself with Spanish words running through my head all day.

Not only do you get the great computer program but you bet 15 months of one on one sessions you can schedule with real time Spanish speaking people online. That is like a personal private teacher. Also you can play games that help you to reinforce what you have learned solo, or duo with someone they match you to who is at your level. Then Simbo with a native Spanish speaking person.

There is only one thing I personally am struggling with is there is no English interpretations in any of the lessons. I was wondering what was the meaning of La, Las, Los, El Ella. I got a great book here on Amazon called the first 1000 words in Spanish. It explains the male and female of nouns. I had already figured that females have the a and males the o added, this has helped me a slow learner very much. Many people will not need this help but I do have some memory and cognitive issues. That being said I am learning! To me this is nothing short of a miracle.

After I finish level 2 I will give you an update. I had wanted to get Rosetta Stone for years and had tried some other brands to no avail. It lives up to it's high reputation. If you want to learn it is the best bar none!



Well-rounded, intuitive course with all the goodies, September 15, 2010

By Cupcake
This review is from: Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America) Level 1-5 Set (CD-ROM)

This complete course includes everything you need. After you install it, it's immediately ready to use--no instructions required. You just jump right in. The interface is very intuitive, with clear prompts for when you speak, click, or type. It never stops and teaches you rules of grammar or word lists--you just pick them up through modified repetition. The course uses a combination of spoken and written language, coupled with images, to teach in a very intuitive way. Unlike audio-only courses, though, you also get the opportunity to read and write the language. Since a new language can look very different from how it sounds, this is really helpful.

The course includes software, a USB headset, and a set of audio CDs you can download to your ipod or take along with you for some portable reinforcement.

I'm not too far along, but I'm really enjoying it so far, finding it simple and fun to use. One really cool feature is that it has you go back and repeat earlier lessons at regular intervals to reinforce vocabulary and sentence structure.

There is also an online component I haven't tried (my schedule's a little erratic in the fall & it's time-sensitive, so I don't want to sign up until I'm confident I can commit), a nice bonus.

The only downside I can see is the cost. This program is quite expensive, but it's immediately so much better than any language course I've tried before (I seem to buy a book or a set of tapes or CDs DVDs every couple years), that I think it's a very good value for the money.


It is worth the money!, September 18, 2010

By Jim620 (Maryville, IL)
This review is from: Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America) Level 1-5 Set (CD-ROM)

You definitely will want version 4 if you are just starting out or have a couple more levels to do. I have been repeating some sections in the first level where the speech recognition software in V3 would not recognize my correct answer no matter how many times I tried. It works much better in V4 and I passed all. Now they could have made the default setting easier so I moved it up to the most difficult and I still passed all and only had to try a few times on those sounds I know I have difficulty with. Thus, they have improved the software and corrected some glitches from V3.

Using the course software is similar to V3. The layout is better. The only thing is when you are done with a lesson; it does take noticeably longer to return to home screen. That is not a big deal.

If you have V3 on your PC then deactivate it first using their directions. You do not need to remove or delete the program. When you load V4, it will keep your user profiles and what you completed already with scores.

With V3, you could activate the product on 2 PC's. I was told by Rosetta Stone that you can only activate V4 on one PC. You can still have multiple users but the online service can only be activated for one user. So far I have not found out how you can pay extra for multiple users having online service. I am disappointed that you can't activate on 2 PC's but I thought they would charge $1,000 for what I got and it only lists for $750 which I think is reasonable. Remember you get 3 months of online service for each level you buy so for 5 levels you get 15 months. The current price to extend is $149 for another 15 months. I was told by Rosetta Stone the 15 months starts when you activate your online service account which is a separate activation from the course's software. You have 12 months from the date you ordered the software to activate it. What they do not mention is there are no games availabe until AFTER you complete Level 1 so I suggest you do not activate until after complete Level 1.

My history with Rosetta Stone is I had V3 Levels 1&2 and completed them this Spring. I was going to buy the rest then; but, from reading the company's quarterly report, I knew they were going to release V4 in the third quarter so I waited. I had a college textbook, ¡ARRIBA! COMUNICACIÓN Y CULTURA, 5th edition, and used it along with their online extras because I figured I would learn some grammar rules in the mean time. Understanding some grammar rules was helpful, but I found trying to memorize the new words and understand stuff I had not learned through Rosetta Stone was ineffective and boring so I lost interest after a few months. This is why I bought V4 on the opening day and highly recommend it for self study...Buy Now!, Save $270 (36%) down from $479 with free shipping from $749!